


for something so in-between

by neonbreadsticks



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Carrots, Complicated Relationships, Donuts, M/M, Pasta, Roses, Unresolved Tension, mental gymnastics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27008422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonbreadsticks/pseuds/neonbreadsticks
Summary: Contrary to popular belief, Daniel Ricciardo is perfect.A blundering, blistering mess of Australianness and spurts of unexpected calm that no amount of good description can properly encompass. And yes, sometimes he leaves the heater on and forgets to do the dishes and laughs too loudly in public spaces, but that’s just how Daniel is, and that’s what everyone loves him for.Charles is trying.He makes noodles for Daniel now. Buys the donuts that have become ‘their thing’. Finds hollow, meaningful laughter in jokes that used to be funnier.Charles doesn’t know what’s wrong. Daniel continues to smile differently and doesn’t ever smile the same again.
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Daniel Ricciardo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	for something so in-between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [secondlifetime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondlifetime/gifts).



There aren’t any roses in the air. 

Not any Charles can smell at least, thanks to his helpful, genetically acquired array of sinus allergies. He blows his nose into a wrinkled handkerchief that’s spent an hour or so incubating in his pocket. The altitude isn’t helping. 

Maybe it’s the air pressure, pushing gently against his eardrums. Or maybe it’s his brain, running on slow-burning diesel, itching to be scrambled by the balance of a fast-moving car. 

Maybe it’s the laughter tickling the back of his throat, forcing a choked sneeze and sheepish grins to bloom a hundred miles in the air, making his ears pop and his eyes water. Maybe that’s what it is. 

There aren’t any roses if you don’t count the one in the tiny glass vase on the plastic table in the first-class cabin right in front of him. 

It sits prettily. Less like a loud grid girl in a sheer bodysuit, and more like a patient lover on the other side of a spotless kitchen counter. 

But its petals have been disappearing, under the careless watch of rasping voices, and under the seemingly harmless prying of calloused fingers that tug just a little too hard. 

“Stop it, Daniel.”

And the fingers retract, leaving the poor flower to regain its composure. They retract and return to their restless drumming on the table, and Charles doesn’t have the heart nor the breath to tell Daniel to stop. 

There’s not much one can do three thousand feet in the air. Except sneeze, maybe. 

\--------------------

To Charles, it’s nothing new. Or rather, something new, yet not entirely unfamiliar.

Because the air of cramped calmness hidden behind Daniel’s smile is something he’s gotten used to, after seeing it behind every bad poker hand and every pretentiously-coloured spirit. It had been there when Daniel suggested the idea of Vegas after a particularly harrowing race, and it was there just an hour ago, between snippets of sneezed-out plane talk. 

It’s still there. Dampened by soft snores that tread on the border of rudeness, their owner incapable of making them such. And Daniel snores, the punchline of a joke dusting his lashes, catching the edges of a newly-formed friendship with the sleeves of his hoodie, in the back of the pale blue taxi. 

Charles catches them too.

It’s the weight balanced against the sheer lightness of the scene. Nothing more than a suggestion that had gained too much traction, until a week's worth of partying had found itself tumbling down Charles’ throat, continuing on with newfound resilience in his stomach, only to come falling back out into a hotel toilet bowl.

And Daniel had laughed and clapped him on the back with all the care of someone equally as giddy, because  _ it’s all part of the experience, man _ . 

Charles had smiled and nodded with more confidence than he should be provided. 

Now it’s late, and dark, and quiet, and the flashy lights of Vegas are replaced by the yellowed street lamps of Monaco. 

Charles smiles at nothing other than the experience. 

And maybe the knowledge that there, tucked in his cheek, lies the beginning of something that doesn’t quite taste like a friendship. 

  
  
  


Daniel wakes up before the taxi reaches his apartment. Or what Charles assumes to be Daniel’s apartment, because he’s never actually seen the place. 

Charles waits as Daniel attempts to stretch in the tiny backseat, and listens for any exhaustion as he thanks the driver for the ride. But the fatigue has melted and the air is warm once again, as Daniel smiles and grabs his suitcase from the trunk. 

That’s how it ends. With Daniel dragging the wheels of his yellow Samsonite along a bumpy gravel track (by the sound of it), waving with his free hand, a toothy grin in the dim hours of the morning. 

Charles barely catches it before he reaches to close the passenger door Daniel had so graciously left open. 

“We should go on a road trip one day.”

And it’s carried on by the cool Monegasque air, into the darkness, drowned out by the sound of an idling taxi. Charles thinks about it a little, and forgets it by the time he gets home. 

\--------------------

Charles feels like he should pick better times to shop. 

He poses for his third selfie, holding up a fan-ordered peace sign to show that he’s actually enjoying himself. He holds the carrot he was planning on buying in his other hand. 

There’s an arm draped awkwardly over his shoulder, courtesy of the fellow grocery-shopper/fan that couldn't have picked a better time to invade his personal space. 

The man is charming, like many Ferrari fans, in a brash, outdated sort of way. His smile eats his face up. His grip on Charles’ shoulder tightens. Charles tries his best to smile without looking too pained. 

Finally, the man leaves him, after checking the photo twice to make sure that there’s nothing in his teeth. He’s offered nothing more than a  _ thanks, Charlie  _ before he disappears down the cereal aisle. Charles is left with his vegetables once again. 

But he’s not, because over the sound of beeping cashiers and rustling plastic bags, Charles hears clinking beer bottles and the shuffle of feet stop behind him, and he’s probably one selfie away from stabbing someone with a carrot. 

And then the person taps him on the shoulder. 

It takes only two seconds for Charles to construct another disposable smile. 

It takes one for the person to dish out a greeting in an all-too-familiar Australian accent. 

“Hey, Charles.”

Charles’ feels his smile widen and he wonders if he looks like that man from before. And if he does, it’s completely forgotten when he sees Daniel. Because Daniel is smiling too, and his eyes shine with maybe more excitement than one would usually have at a supermarket. 

He holds a cartoon of beer in his right hand and a box of Krispy Kreme donuts in his left. Charles can’t help but feel slightly stupid holding a full basket of vegetables. Maybe he’d gone a little overboard with the carrots. 

But Daniel is temporary relief that comes in the finest form of ignorance, because he’s already started talking about the fact that  _ the off-season really stinks but then it kinda doesn’t stink because waking up late is an absolute joy and I get to finish all the junk in my fridge while watching horror shows on Netflix and some people are complete idiots when it comes to identifying the killer and oh have you watched that show I told you to watch yet? _

Charles laughs and says he hasn’t. 

Daniel laughs and moves on. 

It doesn’t take much for Charles to realise that Daniel doesn’t need an invitation. That Daniel doesn’t need anyone to grant him permission and doesn’t need anyone to try. So Daniel follows Charles into the queue for the cashier, and follows him out the door into the chilly air, puffs of smoke decorating each of his sentences. 

And Charles doesn’t complain at the wind biting at his knuckles, nor the droplets of rain that start to bleed from the clouds. His laughter keeps him warm enough. 

Finally, they reach a building which Daniel claims to be his apartment complex, and which Charles deems rather disappointing. (Not out loud though.)

He’d expected something else. Maybe something with more flavour, more flair, more  _ pizzazz  _ as Daniel would so eloquently put it. But it was white concrete and white plaster, not entirely boring but too plain for Monaco, and definitely too plain for someone of Daniel’s calibre. 

Their goodbye is chaste and awkward from Charles’ side, warm and unabashed from Daniel’s. He opens the box of donuts and offers one to Charles. 

Charles picks a jelly donut. 

And Daniel is gone, walking down that same gravel path into the building that’s been drained of its colour. 

Charles gets stopped for another selfie on his way back home. He smiles with jam-stained teeth and hopes his smile is large enough. 

\--------------------

The text comes when Charles is feeling exceptionally bored. 

When he’s done all his dishes and folded his team gear and dusted all of the shelves twice, just in case he’d missed any dust particles the first time. When he’s made sure that the Ferrari memorabilia is still up and that his sanity is still hung around his neck.

When he’s stuck with nothing but the itch under his skin.

It’s the off-season after all. 

The text is a glorious string of emojis from Daniel, closely followed by  _ are you free now?  _ with an unsurprising winky face attached on the end. 

Charles tries his best not to reply too quickly and fails. 

  
  
  


The building is as washed out as it was three days ago, if not more. But not much can change in three days, so Charles gives the architectural insults a rest. 

He can’t help the thrumming in his veins. He can’t stop the nagging at the back of his skull. 

That maybe he should’ve brought something for Daniel. Maybe he should’ve shown up with something other than expensive sneakers and a tired smile, because that’s all he had to offer. 

The lift doors open, and Daniel is welcoming him with a hug that he didn’t manage to predict, so it’s clumsy and unwieldy and lasts longer than Charles admits. He pulls away first and speaks only after placing his shoes on the shoe rack next to the door. 

And he walks through the doorway, one item short of what he’d started with, hoping that he’ll leave with more. 

  
  


Daniel’s apartment is personable, relatable, and more shocking than Charles would’ve expected, given that Daniel is a racing driver and all. 

There’s no team gear, no familiar black and yellow to reveal any indications of what Daniel gets up to in his non-free time. There aren’t any racing magazines, a sharp contrast to the pile on Charles’ own coffee table. There aren’t any trophies, or at least, none in any overly outlandish places. The trophies that are on display wait quietly and patiently, on a shelf behind the kitchen counter, not attention-seeking enough to catch his eye, but receptive enough to allow Charles to hazard a glance. 

There’s only the smell of coffee, paired with the low gurgle of a Nescafe coffee machine. A fridge displaying more than a few notes and toddler’s doodles, messy enough to be considered charming. Several picture frames around the television. A vase of roses on the mantle. 

And then there’s Charles’ helmet. A patch of red and white and black on the navy blue sofa, out of place but balanced carefully on a strategically placed cushion. Daniel probably hasn’t found the time to put it away yet. 

“I haven’t found the time to put it away yet.” Daniel catches Charles’ sentiment before it falls into the back of his mind. 

Daniel catches Charles’ sentiment from his spot on the long end of the L-shaped sofa, somehow already looking like he’d never gotten up to open the door, slapping the remote against his palm to try and get it to work. 

“Be a dear and get the coffee, would you?” 

  
  
  


It takes two hours and three cups of coffee (two for Charles, one for Daniel) for Charles to realise that Daniel has the uncanny ability to never fall short of shocking. A conversation with the self-proclaimed funniest man on the grid shouldn’t have seemed as daunting as it would’ve been a couple weeks ago. 

But Daniel is unspoken heartache and unrelenting charisma packed into the shape of a surprisingly short, curly-haired, Australian man, and Charles grows to like it more than the smile on his face. 

It takes three hours and five cups of coffee (two for Charles, three for Daniel) for Charles to learn that Daniel is worth more than just the smile on his face. Daniel is the man who treasures his nephew’s drawings more than the tacky race magazines Charles feels obliged to like. He’s the man who’d let his mother pick out the navy blue sofa, because he knew he would miss her when she wasn’t in Monaco. And he’s the man who put roses on his mantle.  _ Because they smell good.  _

It takes four hours and six cups of coffee (three for Charles, three for Daniel) for Charles to start feeling the effects of the caffeine. But the time bleeds from his hands into his veins and Charles finds himself sharing more than his company between gulps of air and coffee. He tells Daniel that he was trying to recreate a vegetable curry he’d seen on a cooking show someone recommended, and that it tasted worse than it looked. He tells Daniel that racing for the almighty Ferrari is stressful. He tells Daniel that sometimes his poor Monegasque ears cannot pick out the syllables between Daniel’s words.

Daniel laughs and says  _ yeehaw, matey _ . 

He tells Daniel that he’s leaving because caffeine won’t be of much help to him tomorrow. Daniel tells him that he can come over anytime. 

\--------------------

Charles does not go over anytime. 

Charles only goes over when he gets another text from Daniel, or when Daniel’s bored, or that one other time he’d conveniently bumped into Daniel in the supermarket again. (It was in the baking aisle this time.)

There isn’t an ache in Charles’ body that’ll probably ever get used to Daniel. Even though sometimes he sinks too deep into the navy blue sofa, and sometimes he smells roses in his own apartment. He still manages to wash it off with every shower. 

Until, one day, Daniel appears, his face stretched obscenely by the fisheye lens of the peephole on Charles’ apartment door, carrying a box of donuts under his arm. And Charles stumbles and falters and drops just a little bit of the indifference he tries so hard to maintain. 

It shouldn’t take this long. It shouldn’t require this much thinking and this much struggle but it does. 

There are too many questions. Like why Daniel was here and why he wasn’t given the chance to maybe tidy up before he knew he was getting a visitor and  _ how _ Daniel even got his address in the first place. 

He has too many questions. 

Charles waits a moment too long before letting Daniel in. 

\--------------------

Sometimes when Charles closes his eyes he doesn’t dream. Sometimes when he opens his eyes he isn’t awake, only breathing, and growing, and wilting all at once. 

Sometimes Charles turns his face towards the sun, even though his mother had told him it would ruin his eyes, because the sun is the sun. And the sun is pretty. 

And he feels his eyes rotting and burning in the light and still, he looks at it through squinty eyelids and his smile stretches wider on his face. 

\--------------------

It’s a rather in-between feeling when Daniel comes over again. And again. And maybe four more times after that. 

Charles barely notices the box of donuts turning into less of a mandatory housewarming gift and more of an essential accessory that he associates Daniel with. He barely notices that a whopping ninety percent of Daniel’s hoodies have made themselves recognisable, even though they’re largely shades of black. 

He tries not to notice that Daniel laughs less and smiles differently. That cramped calmness has rendered itself obsolete and that the gaps between Daniel’s teeth have started to hide themselves in something more than just donut jam. 

So Charles picks at his nails and tries not to pick at Daniel’s smile, because it’s neither darkened nor burned out, but rather, become more than what Charles had seen on the covers of his racing magazines and Daniel’s hilariously bad photoshoots. 

Charles doesn’t quite know what it’s become, for Daniel’s toothy grin still remains careless and brazen, yet holds just a twinge of something that just about reaches the back of his eyes. 

  
  
  


They’re stuck in a limbo that doesn’t seem like it’ll end anytime soon. 

Daniel comes over and kicks his shoes off at the door. Charles gets up and kicks Daniel out a few hours later. 

One day, Charles decides not to kick Daniel out. 

His neighbours hear Daniel’s laugh until six in the morning. 

\--------------------

Charles isn’t cooking vegetable soup this time. It’s too late for cooking. 

“But making instant ramen is cooking too.”

(Sometimes Charles forgets who’s older in the relationship.)

Daniel is in a good mood tonight. Not that he’s ever in a bad one, but maybe the streetlamps burn brighter when he passes, and maybe the cold December air loses its bite to just a little bit of his warmth. 

And Charles can only walk alongside him, as Daniel continues forward, with his hands in his pockets and his voice filling the darkness of nighttime Monaco, gracing the ears of every unsuspecting passerby. 

This is how Daniel is in this moment. Cradled by the glow of the nearing supermarket, drenched in his own mirth and Charles’ quiet admiration, basking in the might of a starless night sky. Shadows melt and drip off the ends of his curls. 

Charles finds himself melting and dripping into Daniel’s hands. 

Daniel hums both off-kilter and off-key.

Charles wants to say something but doesn’t. 

  
  
  


Late-night runs to the supermarket hadn’t really been a thing that Charles had grown accustomed to until about an hour and a half ago, thanks to a particularly painful talk to Daniel about instant noodles.

(Daniel said he likes instant carbonara. Charles said that that was both an insult to Italians and mankind.)

Now they stand, no longer lost in the night, but lost in the bright light of the supermarket between shelves of colourful instant noodles. Daniel claims he knows what he’s doing while looking for the noodles he wants. Charles pretends to be able to read Korean when he’s actually looking at the pictures on the packaging. 

He takes interest in one that’s bright red and has a little cartoon chicken on it. It’s probably spicy and probably going to burn his face off. He puts it into the basket anyway. 

Charles doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing here. He doesn’t exactly know what Daniel is doing here with him either, or why he’s spending so long deciding between those two packets of noodles. 

And the speakers carry on spewing out crappy piano music, and Daniel carries on spewing out equally biased and equally double-sided arguments as to why he’s taking so long deliberating. Charles catches Daniel before he can continue and ends up buying both. 

Daniel smiles just a beat too long and just a fraction too much. 

  
  
  


They’re back in the cold. Back out in the night where it's quiet and calm and filled with nothing but the sound of content humming and the beeping of some guy’s car. 

The air between them is stretching, heavy and stagnant and sprawling. It spills from Charles’ tired eyes, and meets Daniel’s, hopeful and alive in the carpark of a 24-hour supermarket.

Charles breathes in and smells gasoline and roses. 

And then Daniel stops humming, and Charles stops walking, and the night stops its calming charade and carries on without them. And they’re left there, baffled by nothing other than their own thoughts, blocked by nothing other than their own breath. 

Charles feels the weight pressing on his back, feels it crackling behind his eyes and feels it teetering on the tip of his tongue. 

It’s the same feeling. Like when Daniel makes sure that Charles laughs until his eyes water, or when Daniel leaves the last jelly donut uneaten. Like that one night in the taxi back from the airport that Charles remembers just a little too well. Charles doesn’t know what he’s anticipating or why he should even be anticipating anything in the first place. 

Daniel is in a good mood. Because he’s quiet and contemplative and holds more than just sleeplessness in his eyes, and Charles can’t help but wonder if this is better or worse. 

But Daniel is full of surprises and Charles is prone to being surprised, so it happens swiftly and quickly and not entirely as smoothly as Charles had imagined. So their noses bump and their lips meet with more vigour than necessary and they laugh into each other’s smiles and they sigh when they pull away. 

There are no fireworks overhead. There are no pretty sunsets or fluorescent lights to celebrate. The wisps of hot air that escape their lips are their only audience, and the exhaustion in Charles’ eyes has bled into the darkness. 

Daniel slips his hand into Charles’ and doesn’t say anything. 

Eventually, they will their feet to move and walk on together. They stretch the silence longer so that it breaks better, keeping their feet on the pavement and their faces bared to only one other, finding their way through the dim light. 

And in the dim light Charles holds Daniel’s hand in his, his sanity slipping slightly, and smiles through the uncertainty. 

\--------------------

Charles doesn’t know if he likes this or not. 

Daniel, always smiling, always present, and never forgotten, kissing the tune of terrible country music into Charles’ skin, regardless of balmy sunlight or waning moonlight. Charles feels it before he knows it's even there to begin with. 

Daniel is there, even when he’s not. Because he stays in the form of an empty Krispy Kreme box, and in the form of a pair of sneakers next to Charles’ expensive ones, and now a jacket, draped carefully over the back of Charles’ armchair, for nights that get too chilly. 

It’s not one-sided. 

Every single one of Daniel’s kisses are returned with one of Charles’ own, a reminder to Daniel that he’s there. And a reminder to himself. 

Daniel has taken to telling Charles that he can come over anytime. So when Charles visits, the door is always wide open. There is always food in the fridge. There is always a piping hot cup of coffee on the table. There is always Daniel, nonchalant and nervous, smiling and serious, on the long end of the navy blue sofa. 

(Daniel had finally put Charles’ helmet away. It sits on the same shelf as the trophies.) 

Today, Daniel does not lie on the sofa. He sits on a rotating bar stool on one side of the kitchen counter. Something that looks alot like pasta sits in front of him. 

“I know it’s not donuts, but I figured we should at least try to be healthy once in a while.”

Charles doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He doesn’t pull Daniel in for a kiss. He sits opposite Daniel and waits for Daniel to say something, because that’s what Daniel’s known for.

And since Daniel is unpredictable like that, he doesn’t say anything. 

There’s something off about this. It’s the strange tightness of Daniel’s jaw and the cold marble surface of the kitchen counter. It’s the smell of savoury pesto pasta instead of powdered sugar. It’s the static in the air. 

Maybe Charles shouldn’t have come over. 

But his sneakers are already too used to staying on Daniel’s shoe rack for more than a couple hours, so he smiles and touches Daniel’s hand. 

Daniel smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Charles eats and thinks that the pasta could use some more salt. 

  
  
  


Their conversation is halting. Spaced out awkwardly by mouthfuls of pesto and words that mean less than they should. Maybe it’s a bad day for Daniel, or maybe Daniel had smiled until he’d forgotten how to. Maybe it’s Charles, too caught up in his own thoughts to properly enjoy the company of his, what is this, boyfriend? Maybe Charles was thinking too loudly for Daniel and maybe—

“Charles.”

Charles looks up. Daniel doesn’t. He picks at a glob of pesto that’s gotten stuck to the bottom of the bowl. 

“You know I like you right?”

Charles barely manages to  _ not  _ choke. In fact, he does choke. So he sputters and nods. 

He knows what Daniel wants him to say. He knows what Daniel wants to hear. He pieces together a smile and lets it eat his face up.

“Yeah, I know.” And because that’s not enough, he adds, “I like you too.”

Daniel smiles just a little, and then smiles a lot, because Charles has green in his teeth. 

And Charles is able to breathe, albeit shallow and shaking. Simply because Daniel hadn’t been able to pick up the tremble in his voice and the doubt he’d too willingly swallowed. 

\--------------------

Today isn’t a good day to be feeling like this. 

The sun is too bright and too welcome in the room. The plastic noodle packaging crackles in Daniel’s hands. Late January breeze carries car exhaust and pollution into Charles’ lungs. He smells nothing but the roses on the mantle.

(They’d gone to the florist to pick out a bunch of new ones. Daniel had smiled. Charles had sneezed.)

Charles doesn’t want to be feeling like this. 

But even then, he catches each of Daniel’s words before they hit the floor, and finds his own laughter around the corners and behind the closed doors of Daniel’s apartment. 

Daniel is talking about some new French deli he wants to try out. Croissants and crepes and things of the sort. 

And Charles is crossing the room and pressing his lies onto Daniel’s lips until the talk of croissants and crepes disappear into the streets below. 

  
  
  


It’s strange, really. 

How Daniel can leave just an hour later, one hand on the doorframe, one foot out the door, already talking about what show they’ll watch together when he gets back from the supermarket. 

How Daniel says  _ bye, Charles  _ with both indifference and attentiveness alike, leaving Charles alone in the place that smells too sweet, in a building that’s too ugly. 

Charles wonders if Daniel loves him. 

\--------------------

Bouquets of roses are good for meeting the parents, according to a reliable Google search, so a bouquet is what Daniel holds. 

Charles watches as Daniel rocks back and forth on his heels. He reaches for the doorbell again. 

“No, wait. She doesn’t like impatient people.” Charles barely manages to breathe out before the door opens.

“Hello, Charles.”

“Hi, mum.”

Charles might just throw up. 

  
  


Despite the thousands of times Charles had imagined this interaction, he still finds himself both amazed and relieved. The table is too cold, stuffed full of childhood memories and the scent of his mother’s cooking. 

Charles doesn’t come over often enough. 

Picture frames house photographs more embarrassing than Charles remembered, and they’re graced by the seldom, but not entirely infrequent glances of the man sitting next to him. Their knives scrape against the white porcelain plates. Music plays in the background. 

According to Pascale, it’s  _ for ambience.  _

Daniel doesn’t say what Charles and him had practiced on the way here. He doesn’t ask Pascale how she’s doing. Doesn’t say that the chicken tastes good and that he would like another portion. But Pascale is smitten anyway, and Charles doesn’t need to ask to confirm it. 

Daniel impresses her with his very limited French vocabulary, listens to her stories and says “really?” at all the right moments. He points at the pictures and asks about those. He helps himself to another portion of chicken and Pascale doesn’t stop him. 

He helps Pascale put the roses into a vase with fresh water. She says that they’re beautiful. 

Charles doesn’t know what to think. Finally, Daniel leaves them, making some terrible joke about how the food was great but it still has to come out the other side, making a straight beeline for the toilet. 

“You seem to like him.”

Charles nods and smiles like he’s trying too hard. “He’s great.”

And Charles can already see it in his mother’s eyes, feels it aching in the old wood of the dining table. 

_ But? _

“Do you love him?”

Pascale is speaking in staccato, her fumbling Monegasque tongue slipping over English words that Charles has grown so used to. The tone is familiar. Like she was scolding him for a bad Mathematics grade, or slapping his brother, or getting silver instead of gold. 

“Yeah. I do.”

Charles bares his teeth and smiles. The knives scrape against the plates. The roses smell too strong. 

Then the creaking of the toilet door comes from down the hall, and the muted humming starts again. 

\--------------------

Contrary to popular belief, Daniel Ricciardo is perfect. 

A blundering, blistering mess of Australianness and spurts of unexpected calm that no amount of good description can properly encompass. And yes, sometimes he leaves the heater on and forgets to do the dishes and laughs too loudly in public spaces, but that’s just how Daniel is, and that’s what everyone loves him for. 

Charles is trying. 

He makes noodles for Daniel now. Buys the donuts that have become ‘their thing’. Finds hollow, meaningful laughter in jokes that used to be funnier. 

Charles doesn’t know what’s wrong. Daniel continues to smile differently and doesn’t ever smile the same again. 

\--------------------

Daniel barges into Charles’ room when Charles is still feeling the after effects of a late night’s sleep. 

(Someone had sent him a video of a cat playing the piano. It started his descent into a hole of questionable YouTube videos.)

Daniel is waving some piece of paper in his face and talking too quickly for Charles to properly understand. It’s evident he’s being asked a question. Charles opts for a yawn instead. 

And his yawn is cut off (rather rudely, Charles might add) by someone shoving a piece of freshly printed paper into his face. It’s not like Charles can read it better this way. So he peels it off his face and looks. 

“What is this?”

Daniel is pacing from one end of the room to another, evidently having nothing else to prevent his ever-existing over-eagerness. He runs his hands through his hair and cracks his knuckles, balancing on the very thin line between excitement and insanity. 

Charles has half the mind to ask if he’s feeling okay. 

But Charles doesn’t. Because when Daniel turns to face him, he’s smiling. Not the smile he’d seen since that one pasta dinner, but the one he tries so hard to hold onto, through blurry casinos and sneezy airplane rides. Daniel hangs hope from the corner of his lips and longing in the whites of his eyes and Charles wants to laugh and cry all at once.

“Mate, we’re going on a road trip.”

And immediately, Charles is faltering. 

He doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t cry. Only tired eyes and a tired smile and nothing more than what he wants to offer. He knows Daniel sees it, because he sees it too, reflected in the hope that Daniel holds so, so tenderly.

Charles doesn’t hold Daniel’s hand. He checks if his sanity is still around his neck, but he’d lost it months ago, in that cold supermarket parking lot. 

“No. We’re not.”

Charles lets Daniel’s smile hit the floor before he turns over and goes back to sleep. 

\--------------------

It’s not as cold today. Charles had expected more from mid-February Monegasque weather, but clearly, it had lost its touch. 

The box of donuts is clumsy and awkward in his hands, not granted enough attention thanks to the six shopping bags dangling from his arms. He tries to right the box to prevent those sickly sweet jelly donuts from getting smushed together. 

Charles is tired. From smiling for unflattering selfies that find themselves into fan’s phones and onto anonymously-run fan accounts on Instagram. It had happened twice in the past hour. 

Finally, he reaches his apartment. Nondescript white and glaring red has never looked so welcome. 

But there’s something wrong. The balance in the air is dangerously off, a heavy weight juxtaposed by something that was once there. 

And then he notices. That the dishes in the sink are back on the drying rack, and the heater is switched off. That the jacket on his armchair has vanished, and that his shoe rack is empty and listless, holding nothing more than too many pairs of expensive sneakers. 

And then he notices that there aren’t any roses in the air. 

**Author's Note:**

> ahh this fic took honestly way too long to write and there's just something about it that tastes so so off. but hey!!! dan got a podium this past weekend and life is snazzy and amazing :DDD also big thanks to secondlifetime for critique ;) thanks dear maybe one day i will write non-angst


End file.
